


Reaction

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M, challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 10:48:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/797751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair, back to back. With angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reaction

## Reaction

#### by T.Verano 

Author's website: <http://home.earthlink.net/~t.verano>  
  
Written for Patk's 2007 Moonridge Claim Challenge prompt of "Back to Back." With many thanks to Patk for issuing the challenge and providing the prompt (and waiting so patiently for the fic).  
Many thanks also to the wonderfully helpful, thorough, insightful, generous, supportive, and utterly lovely Jane Davitt for beta reading this (and for a million other things too). ::hugs Jane fiercely::  
  
This story is a sequel to: 

* * *

When he shifted enough to tug his boxers smooth, his T-shirt twisted so it was pulling across his ribcage. Empirical proof of something: solidarity among underwear, maybe; or conspiracy theory, if you included the mattress. Or, and possibly more likely -- fuck, who was he kidding, way more likely -- the advisability of going to bed drunk. 

And it was a little late to think of that now, since the Jack Daniels was downstairs in the kitchen cabinet, and Jim was downstairs in the living room, and just _no_. 

No. No Jack. No Jim. Blair rolled onto his side again, which bunched his boxers back up under his hip. Empirical proof of something, yeah. 

Lying here. Like this. Listening to Jim. 

Listening, predictably, to nothing much. A brief scrape of glass against wood -- that was Jim's Budweiser versus the coffee table. A faint rustle of jeans against upholstery: Jim versus the couch. A breath, exhaled a little too forcefully, and then a short silence before another, quieter, sigh. 

Nothing much. Right. 

Lying here, like this; no Jim and no Jack. 

And no Advil, either. Blair closed his eyes for a moment to shut out the flickering reflected light from the television. At least Jim had the sound off. 

The couch creaked and Blair opened his eyes. Unflickering darkness -- okay, Jim had turned off the TV, finally. And gotten up; there were footsteps heading toward the kitchen. 

Which didn't actually mean anything, of course. Jim could just be going to the kitchen for another beer to take back to the couch and nurse for hours in the dark. In the darker dark, now. 

Kitchen, yeah; the faucet was on and Jim was rinsing out the beer bottle, then tossing it -- well, placing it with an annoyingly unemphatic clink -- in the recycling bin. Blair waited for the refrigerator door to open and Jim to pull out another Bud, but the door stayed closed and Jim's footsteps went down the hallway toward the bathroom. Which still didn't mean anything, of course, except that Jim was -- 

Right, getting rid of his first couple of beers, the easy way. Man, the bathroom door blocked sound worth crap. Washing his hands... brushing his teeth... Okay, so unless he wanted another puerile delaying tactic -- 

He didn't. Or he wasn't bothering, anyway; his footsteps crossed the living room without a pause and started up the stairs. 

He didn't pause at the top of the steps, either; just, by the sound of it, started peeling off his clothes. And folding them neatly, psychotically neatly -- which was deduction more than observation, sure, but kindergarten-level deduction; Jim always folded his clothes psychotically neatly when he took them off. Unless, of course, he had his dick on his mind. 

Fat fucking chance of _that_ tonight. 

Blair kept his breathing slow and steady -- a matter of principle, mostly, considering his less-voluntary physiological responses -- as Jim's weight settled on the far edge of the mattress. And stayed there. 

With his back turned. And yeah, that was deduction too, but it was diaper-level deduction, and he wasn't going to roll over and check out the back of Jim's crew cut to verify it. He didn't need to; he knew. 

Oh, yeah. He knew. They were just going to lie there. Not talking, not touching, not even looking at each other. Which, undoubtedly, in Jim's twisted dimension of the universe, was entirely Blair's fault. 

Keeping your breathing slow and steady wasn't all that easy when your teeth were grinding together. Blair didn't know how Jim could manage it so well; he was finding it a bitch, himself. 

* * *

Great. Moonlight, a lot of it; the cloud cover had obviously decided to bail. Blair glared at a particularly bright glint on the railing. He usually liked moonlight, liked having enough light to see Jim better at night; not as well as Jim could see _him_ , sure, but -- 

But not tonight. 

Not with a fucking mile of bed between him and Jim. 

Which was Jim's fault, not his. _Jim's_ fault; the mile of bed between them, the mile of empty bed between his back and Jim's. 

Between him and Jim's back. Which Blair wasn't going to turn to look at. Which -- God, he could use that Advil -- might as well still be downstairs rubbing shoulders with the back of the couch. Or at the station, imitating cold rolled steel from across the bullpen. Or at Leo's Handi-Mart, turning away from him; Jim walking away from him, goddammit. 

* * *

Blair sagged under the powerful grip on his biceps and let Jim's blessedly unfazeable -- if currently a little tense -- muscles deal with the strictures of gravity. Reaction; maybe he should have just stayed on the floor for another minute, or maybe a week or two? The scuffed linoleum had been nice and stable to hang out on, nose to mop-mark, but vertical was feeling kind of... theoretical. Like breathing, which he'd thought he'd gotten a handle on. 

Crap. Oxygen was clearly a little thin here at the scenic higher altitudes, all six foot furious two of them, and he needed to acclimatize. In a hurry. Reaction -- oh, yeah. Jim's hands were on his arms, but he needed more Jim, needed Jim wrapped around him, needed to wrap himself around Jim, here and now. Fuck patience; fuck the nonexistent privacy of the storage room behind the counter; fuck being discreet. 

God, if only they could. 

Okay, fuck dignity, anyway. Not that Blair had much viable dignity left to fuck at this point, but Jim certainly wasn't adding to it. He hadn't even given Blair a chance to get his breathing back under control before he'd tightened his grip on Blair's arm and peeled out down the snack aisle, hauling Blair behind him like -- no; finishing that comparison wasn't going to help all that much with the whole dignity issue. And Jim was doing Mach 2, at least -- the Cheetos and Ding-Dongs were passing in a blur -- and he wasn't listening to Blair's protests -- well, to be fair, he was probably moving too fast for the sound to catch up with him even if he'd been willing to listen, which he wasn't yet, but he would be; yeah, he would be, as soon as they -- 

Which they couldn't. Not here. Fuck. 

At least they were headed toward the relatively deserted back of the store The crutches Jim had threatened to duct tape to Blair's armpits this morning when he caught Blair limping around the kitchen again were lying ignored on the dingy floor back beneath the Trojans display, and Jim was paying shit-all attention to the fact that he was dragging Blair along way too fast for Blair's still-theoretical knees, let alone his already-proven bad ankle, and Blair could see exactly where this was going, and yeah, he'd take any privacy he could get for -- 

Yeah, okay, for ending up against the glass door of the beer cooler. Big surprise; it was as close to a wall as they could get -- as Jim could get, to pin him against... well, shove him up against, which was -- which was... fuck, if only it would be followed by Jim's tongue in his mouth, hotly insistent, trying to reach his dick by way of his throat. 

Christ, that was what he needed. 

But he wasn't going to get it. Of course he wasn't. Jim's fingers were digging into Blair's shoulders, and that was okay, but it wasn't enough. He wrapped his hands around Jim's wrists; still not enough, not nearly enough, but the front of the store was swarming with cops. He wasn't going to get what he needed. Not here, not -- 

No, not true; that wasn't true; what he needed more than anything was for Jim to be alive. And Jim was alive. Jim was okay. Seriously pissed off, but okay. 

And yelling now, sure, but keeping the dBs down, at least; yelling quietly. Hissing, almost -- a cutting torch made that same kind of lethally quiet hiss, if you had it adjusted right. Shit, Jim was good at sounding like that. And okay, yeah, he ought to be paying attention, a little attention anyway, to what Jim was actually saying, but Jim's face was so damn close, and if Blair couldn't touch... couldn't taste... if he couldn't... Jesus, he couldn't focus. Jim was hot enough to ignite steel, all of Jim, not just his voice, and even if it wasn't entirely the kind of heat Blair was shaking from it wasn't helping. He needed -- God, they _both_ needed -- 

"-- you were doing. You. Are. _Not_. Goddammit. A. --" 

Crap. _Cop_. If he was going to start involuntarily tuning in to Jim's lecture, he could've at least waited until Jim had gotten _that_ golden oldie out of his system. And shit, he could've -- should've -- paid at least a little attention to what he was doing himself; mouthing the words a couple of beats after Jim was a purely automatic reaction, yeah, but an asshole thing to do at this particular moment, at least according to the way Jim's wonderfully alive, pissed-off face had just morphed from flushed to scarily pale. 

Beyond pissed-off. Fuck. "Jim --" 

"Can't fucking trust you --" 

_Fuck_. 

The mouth Blair had been watching with painful need abruptly stopped spitting out words, and the flame-blue glare that Jim had been leveling at him moved downward to Blair's desperately tight fly. 

And Jim let go of Blair's shoulders, freeing his wrists from Blair's clutching hands with expressionless -- and depressing -- ease, and stepped back. 

And turned away. And walked off. 

Goddamn him. 

* * *

There was a small patch of moonlight lying on the desk, picking out Jim's mouse pad, with the mouse placed precisely at the center -- Jim always left it that way when he turned the computer off; it drove Blair nuts -- and Blair's glasses, half-hidden in the shadow from the monitor, and the silver Cross pen Carolyn had given Jim. To write checks and pay bills with, Jim had said, rolling his eyes; but he still used the pen. 

And okay, scowling was childish; Blair knew that. He wasn't the only childish person in the room -- Jim was faking, breathing slowly and evenly, deliberately, pretending he was asleep. Pretending he didn't know perfectly well that Blair wasn't asleep. Pretending, possibly, that Blair wasn't even there, which was just fucking _immature_. 

Like he'd been at Leo's, walking away from the beer-cooler and Blair and Blair's post NDE hard-on. 

Like he'd been in the truck, afterward, heading to the station. Where it should have been _better_ , because Blair could touch Jim, really touch him; even if they had to be discreet, they could still -- 

_Damn_ Jim, sitting there like a chunk of hearing-impaired and selectively nonverbal bipedal ice, when he _knew_... 

Oh, he knew, damn him. What they both needed. Which wasn't -- _so_ fucking wasn't -- for him to peel Blair's hands off his arm, his thigh, like Blair's hands were nothing, meant nothing; pretending. To push Blair away, like _Blair_ meant nothing; pretending. To have only one word to say, one word to Blair's many; one solitary, emotionless _Don't_ , in a voice winter would fucking envy. Pretending. 

So fucking childish. 

* * *

Man, he could really use the Advil. And some ice, or the bag of frozen peas. Stomping up to bed had been stupid. 

Maybe stomping was the wrong word; it was hard to stomp up steps when you only had one good ankle and the other ankle hadn't had all that great a day. But whatever you called whatever it was that he'd done, he'd done it as loudly as he'd been able to. 

Loudly, without words -- he'd finally had enough of words, at least of his own words, sliding off Jim like they were the ice and Jim was the blast furnace. And that was irony in metaphor for you, since Jim was still operating at temperatures a flash freezer would be proud of and Blair's words had been pretty... heated. 

Which was maybe an understatement, but fuck. And he'd had enough of his own words, yeah, but he couldn't exactly say he'd had enough of Jim's words since there hadn't been any words from Jim for hours -- not any words that counted, anyway; practically nothing since that sub-zero "Don't" in the truck, only the absolute minimum for paperwork and for getting back to the loft, and every grudging syllable apparently chipped off a goddamned glacier. 

And this was ridiculous; if he wasn't going to go get the peas, or ask Jim to get the peas -- yeah, like he would ask Jim for anything right now -- at least he needed to roll onto his other side, shift the pressure on his ankle. And he wasn't _going_ to. 

So not going to. 

Not going to turn toward Jim. 

Not tonight. He'd had enough of that, too. Enough of getting shrugged off so fucking easily. Enough of Jim pretending he wasn't even there. 

Like that fucking shower, alone. 

_Alone_ , damn him. 

And maybe it was hypocritical to be so pissed off about the shower since he'd been bitching for days at Jim's "Take a shower alone and you're dead meat, One-Leg" ankle-police edict. But he hadn't really been bitching at showering with Jim -- like anybody would bitch about that -- just at Jim's stubborn "You're not steady enough on your feet for that, babe" attitude about doing anything in the shower except just _showering_. Sure, Blair had banged his ankle against the tub that first night, and okay, it had hurt, but it was a crime against nature to be naked and wet with Jim and not even -- 

Because Jesus, Jim in the shower... 

Sleek and wet and hard, everywhere... 

So hard. 

So hard, except for his eyes. God, Jim's eyes... 

But not tonight. No, not fucking _tonight_. Just Blair standing alone in the tub with one hand braced against the tile, trying not to put weight on his bad ankle. 

Unsteady. 

Vibrating with fury. 

Or something. 

* * *

The moonlight on the floor beside the bed seemed to be throbbing fuzzily in sympathy with his ankle. Blair glared at it, which only seemed to make it throb more energetically. Crap. Lying here sulking -- and peas-less -- sucked. 

Maybe he should roll over and punch Jim, instead of just lying here sulking. Even if -- 

Yeah, okay, he wasn't going to roll over and punch Jim. Not yet, anyway. 

But he could kick Jim in his perfect, uptight ass, the ass Jim was so helpfully keeping turned in Blair's direction, handily accessible. 

For kicking, goddammit. 

Or he could just roll over and breathe against the nape of Jim's neck; hot, damp, lingering breaths that wordlessly pledged everything Jim liked best, while his hands traced the small of Jim's back and wandered down, slowly, teasing, and... 

And Jim would roll off the bed without a word. Go downstairs. Hit the couch and turn the fucking TV back on. With the volume off. 

Shit. 

Stubborn son of a bitch. It had worked out okay. Hopped-up Orange-Haired Guy and his partner hadn't shot anybody. It had worked out _okay_ ; Jim didn't need to be so pissed. 

What else was Blair supposed to have done, anyway? Jim would have gone in through the front door himself; he always acted like he thought he was invincible. Or like he didn't care if he wasn't. 

Yeah, all right, that wasn't entirely fair. Jim would have gone in through that door because it was his job, because it was who he was, because he protected people, not because he thought he was invincible. But it wouldn't have mattered why he'd done it; if he'd gone in through the front door, Strung-out Orange-Haired Guy or his buddy would have shot him. Blair knew it. 

Jim knew it too; he just wouldn't admit it. Jim looked like six-foot-two of coiled and ready, lethally capable Action Hero, even in the middle of the night when he was sound asleep and drooling against Blair's shoulder. No way could he have walked through that door and pretended to be just an ordinary, harmless, unthreatening, Snapple-seeking, five-basically-eight klutz with a sprained ankle, like Blair had. 

Not that Blair had been pretending, if you didn't count the Snapple. 

And not that he'd _wanted_ to go in there. Jesus. Trying to distract a whacked-out guy with a freaking big gun and alarmingly shaking hands -- no, not something he'd wanted to do. But the cashier, shit... And Orange-Haired Guy had looked like he was starting to completely lose it; Jim would have gone in through the front door if Blair had told him Orange-Haired Guy looked like he was starting to completely lose it, because Jim would have _had_ to go in through the front door, the fastest door, even though there was no chance in hell Orange-Haired Guy would mistake him as a harmless, unthreatening Peach Tea-seeking distraction -- and there wasn't any cover at all, and Orange-Haired Guy's friend was in there somewhere with his own freaking big gun, and Jim didn't have a vest in the truck, much less fucking _on_ , and the nearest backup was five minutes out and there wasn't any _time_ left, and Jim almost had the back door open anyway, right? and Blair could at least _try_ ; oh, God, he _had_ to -- 

Jim _would_ have gone in. He would have. And he would have been -- 

* * *

"Stop biting your lip or whatever the hell you're doing." 

"Uh?" Fuzzy, throbbing moonlight; not the gray afternoon light outside Leo's while he leaned against the side of somebody's mud-splashed Blazer parked at the corner, trying to pretend he was waiting for somebody -- somebody other than his partner the cop who was busy quietly picking the lock on the store's back door in the alley -- and trying to pretend he wasn't watching Orange-Haired Guy through Leo's plate glass and muttering _Hurry up_ , unnecessarily, to Jim. 

Jim, who'd just _said_ something, here and now, voluntarily. Not that that was all that much of a breakthrough since his voice was still a couple of hundred degrees colder than the air coming off an iceberg. And what was he talking about, anyway? 

"You're making yourself bleed." 

Not an apology. Fuck, no. 

And he wasn't biting his lip. "No, I'm not. Jesus. Guilt-induced hallucination, Ellison; no surprise, your subconscious is seriously fucked up. But hey, if blood is what it takes to get you to fucking _talk_ to me --" 

Okay, that was a sentence he was better off not finishing. Especially not when -- shit -- he _was_ bleeding. 

Shit. His fists were so tight that his fingernails had stabbed into his palms. Blair wiped his hands against his T-shirt; not that there was all that much blood, but the Kleenex box was on Jim's side of the bed -- no place Blair planned to be any time soon -- and no way in hell was he gimping downstairs for Band-Aids. And Jim could fucking well wash the stains out of the tee tomorrow if a little fucking blood bugged him so much. At least Blair hadn't wiped his hands off on the sheets. 

Jim wasn't reacting, damn him; he was probably lying there tracking Blair's T-shirt abuse and adding it to his asshole list of Wrongs Perpetrated By Blair Sandburg Against James Ellison. Blair gritted his teeth, which didn't entirely prevent a grunt from escaping as he shifted his ankle and rolled to face Jim. To face Jim's back, anyway. Jim's moonlit, unmoving, un-fucking-moved back. 

The jerk. "Fine. Keep ignoring me. Next time I'll just make sure I get shot. Will that make you happy? Because me _not_ getting shot doesn't seem to be making you --" 

"That's enough." 

"It's not anywhere near enough." Blair could hear the hardness in his voice, from anger and the fight to keep himself from moving towards Jim. And yeah, he'd wanted to punch Jim, but he didn't really want to _punch_ Jim; he wanted to -- 

"Yeah, you made that perfectly clear this afternoon." 

"What's that supposed to mean? I was only --" 

"Fair warning, Chief. If you've gotten hooked on the rush, you're out." 

Which was -- " _What_?" What kind of lame-brain -- "You're fucking kidding, right? You think I -- Jim, after -- that was just reaction, man, you _know_ that, shit --" Adrenaline. Jim knew all about adrenaline. Christ, Blair'd had the scraped palms to prove it, red and scratched from bracing himself against the nearest sufficiently private wall; rough brick, both times -- not that he'd minded. What he'd minded was it not being private _enough_. What he'd minded was every time he'd had to wait -- and fucking wait, and wait; witnesses and uniforms and Simon and statements and reports and schmoozing with Joel in the breakroom -- to be alone with Jim, every time he'd had to wait for _proof_. 

Jim _knew_ that. 

And the self-righteous, delusional bastard hadn't even moved a muscle, lying there not saying a word, like he actually believed Blair had -- "I didn't go in there because I wanted a _rush_ , you asshole. Shit, I didn't want to go in there at all." 

Jim moved, finally; rolled onto his back and looked at Blair. Impassively, as far as Blair could tell -- as far as the moonlight let him tell -- but it still should have felt like progress. Maybe it would have, if Jim wasn't being such an incontrovertible jerk. 

"Sure you didn't." Sarcasm; great. "I'm beginning to wonder what you really do want. You had a choice there, Chief; you knew I was focused on picking that lock and counting on you to keep me posted. You _knew_ that, and you deliberately waited to tell me you were playing hero until it was too late for me to stop you." 

Okay, that was true, sort of. But not all of it. "Jim, I told you --" 

"You're not hearing me here. You had a choice. You weren't on your own; I was fucking _there_ , and there wasn't any weird-ass shit happening with the senses, and no goddamn reason for you fly solo." 

"You _know_ why. I told you why, dammit! I was just --" 

"Playing hero when you didn't need to? On fucking _crutches_. Christ. Pop quiz here, Einstein -- what's the difference between necessary risk and head jammed up your ass stupidity? Because from where I'm standing you either can't tell the difference or you really _are_ starting to get off on --" 

"God -- if you'd get your head out of your own ass and actually listen to me for five seconds --" 

"Like you listened to me about keeping me informed? About just _watching_ for a fucking change --" 

"-- instead of going off the deep end like a first-class jerk --" 

"-- for once in your suicidal life? And 'going off the deep end' -- that's my fucking point --" 

"-- about shit you know isn't true, you might even --" 

"He pulled the fucking _trigger_ , Sandburg! If the gun hadn't--" 

* * *

Dirty, scarred, beige and gray and brown vinyl. Close-up. Very close-up. 

The floor. 

He was on the floor? 

"Blair?" That was Jim's voice, nearby. Jim's voice. Jim was here. _Jim was here_. What had --? 

Oh, man. 

Shot. Shot? He didn't feel shot. Or dead. He -- 

Breathe. He could breathe. He was gasping like an out-of-water fish, but that was okay; he was _breathing_. And maybe instead of just lying on the floor and communing with poorly maintained linoleum from the overly personal distance of less than three inches, he should -- 

Christ. _Focus_. It shouldn't be so hard to focus. Okay... he was on the floor -- right, he knew that one already -- and there were big plastic bottles of Fanta Grape and Mountain Dew and Hires Root Beer on the shelf beside his face. Jim -- _Jim_ \-- was at the end of the aisle, near Orange-Haired Guy, saying something in a raw voice. Orange-Haired Guy was on the floor -- which was marginally freaky; Blair had already started to think of it as _his_ floor, such as it was -- and bleeding. 

Orange-Haired Guy was bleeding. Not Jim. 

Not Jim, right? Which meant Jim must have shot Orange-Haired Guy. And the shot Blair'd heard must have been from Jim's gun. _Jim's_ gun. Right? And the other gun, the gun that had been -- 

Okay, that gun was on the floor, over there below the shelf with the beef jerky and the Pringles Cheez-ums. Far enough away from Orange-Haired Guy. And Blair. 

Good. 

Orange-Haired Guy was bleeding. Not too badly; that was good -- good for Orange-Haired Guy, at least Blair hoped it was, and good for Blair, since he wasn't exactly into the idea of getting close enough to render first aid to the crazy fucker, even with Jim standing guard. 

Jim. 

In control. 

Action Hero. 

Which Jim never seemed to _get_ about himself; he just saved the day, and cracked a joke or bitched about the hair Blair had left in the bathtub drain that morning or gave half his lunch to a stray dog in the park and pretended he'd been full anyway. 

Orange-Haired Guy shifted, moaning. Jim was still talking in that raw voice; it didn't have the cadence of a Miranda, so Jim was probably talking to Blair, not to Orange-Haired Guy and Blair was blowing it, failing Action Hero's 'Calm, Cool, And Collected Partner At Crime Scene, Advanced Studies', big-time, because he couldn't get his mind to stop jumping from the gun, to Jim, to relief that he hadn't actually pissed in his jeans, close as it had undoubtedly been, to Jim, to the gun, to the other gun, to -- 

The other gun. The other -- "Jim, the other guy?" 

"Secured," Jim said. Secured; of course he was. Jim would have made sure of that. "Tell me if you're fucking _hurt_ , Sandburg." 

Hurt? No. But -- "He shot me. Shit, he _shot_ me. But I don't -- I'm not --" 

"The gun misfired." Jim's voice didn't sound so strained anymore, but shit, he sounded -- 

"Tell. Me. If. You're --" 

Pissed. Misfired? 

"Jesus. God. Yeah, I'm -- I mean no, I'm okay. Not hurt. Okay. God." It was hard to talk without any saliva in his mouth. Of course he could grab some of the Dew that was next to his ear, but making a quick run to the nearest package store sounded like a better idea; when he was ready to leave his floor, that was. Yeah, screw the brominated vegetable oil and the FD&C Yellow #5 and bring on something with no FD&C anything, just some seriously persuasive proof. 

Proof. Jim. "You okay, Jim?" Jim looked okay, but you couldn't tell, not with Jim. And he hadn't asked Jim about Louise -- "Louise okay?" 

There was a five-second pause from Jim while he apparently connected 'Louise' with the motherly cashier and her name tag. "She's fine." 

Good. Fine -- except, of course, for having had a gun held against her throat by a drugged-out shit-stupid crazy guy with the shakes and pretty impressive hostility issues. He hoped Louise had a good therapist. Not that therapy always helped a hell of a lot. 

Man, it was a good thing they'd missed the light and that that redhead had been walking down the block past Leo's while they were waiting for the green, otherwise Jim wouldn't have looked back in that direction and wouldn't have seen what was going down and Louise probably wouldn't be around for therapy, whether it helped or not. 

Yeah, okay, so Blair hadn't thought it was such a good thing at the time; the redhead's ass hadn't been _that_ spectacular. Jesus. Someday he was going to henna his hair, just on general principles. 

A couple of sirens were closing in fast and Blair pushed himself up so he was sitting, at least, his back leaning against the Pepsi, his butt getting acquainted with Friend Floor. Backup -- which really didn't need to find him still kissing the vinyl -- was here, now that it wasn't needed anymore. 

Needing backup on your day off. Only Jim. 

Jim. He hadn't answered Blair's question -- just the part about Louise -- he was okay, right? "Jim, you all right?" Blair asked again. His voice was still sticking to the roof of his mouth a little and that was embarrassing; almost as embarrassing as it was to be pretty sure that his knees would categorically veto standing up right now -- but hey, he was alive. He and Jim were both alive. 

Jim wasn't looking at him; he was watching Orange-Haired Guy and something out of Blair's line of sight behind another row of shelves, something which was probably a somebody, probably Orange-Haired Guy's friend 'Secured'. 

He was okay, right? "Jim, you --" 

"I'm fine," Jim said. Snarled. Blair winced. "Better than you're going to be." 

Crap. Okay, he couldn't really blame Jim for that. Jim had been worried. Blair just needed to get him alone. 

God, he _needed_ to get Jim alone. 

_Proof_. 

The door behind the counter was partway open and it hadn't been open at all, before. Jim must've gotten in through the back like he'd planned, but the Jim-to-the-rescue portion of the program seemed to be a little hazy right now, swallowed up by those last couple of seconds when the gun had gone off. 

When it _hadn't_ gone off. Even if it had. 

Yeah. Okay. Breathe... Right. Jim hadn't come in through the front; Blair would have remembered _that_ , so Jim had gotten in through the back. As soon as Jim got Orange-Haired-Guy and his buddy safely on their way to lockup -- or maybe the hospital, for Orange-Haired-Guy -- they could... Of course, they _couldn't_ ; it didn't matter how much he wanted, _needed_ Jim up against the door to the alley, the door that had saved Jim's life. 

No. He couldn't have what he needed right now. But after Jim finished up here they'd leave in the truck, and there'd be somewhere on the way to the paperwork at the station, some-fucking-where that they could have a minute together. A minute, if nothing else; enough to hold on to. 

Because he needed Jim. 

Jim who could be bleeding like Orange-Haired Guy was bleeding. Or worse. 

Who could be... 

Who might have been -- 

No. 

_No_. 

* * *

"Cut it out, Chief. You dig any more skin out of your palms and I'm --" Blair stopped listening, and looked at his clenched hands. He was doing it again? Like it mattered. He could have been... _Jim_ could have been -- 

His fingers didn't want to uncurl. He was still looking at his motionless fists when Jim's fingers wrapped around them and pried them open. "I said stop doing that. You're going to get blood on the sheets." 

Blood on the sheets. Blood on his T-shirt. Like any of that _mattered_. "Whatever it takes," Blair muttered, to himself, between teeth that felt just about as clenched together as his fingers had been a moment ago. Why didn't Jim get what really mattered? 

Jim's fingers were still wrapped around his hands, and they tightened for a moment, painfully, and then Jim let go. And said, with absolutely no inflection, "You need ice on your ankle." And started to roll away. 

No. Not now. Not _now_. 

" _Goddammit_ , Jim." It was hard to swallow; when had he started having to scrape words from the back of his throat, sounding as raw as Jim had sounded, all those fucking hours ago? "Please." 

Jim stopped moving but he didn't turn back toward Blair. "You didn't trust me to handle my job. You didn't trust _me_." His voice was flat. 

Shit. _Shit_. 

"That wasn't why -- of course I trust you. God, you know I do -- it wasn't not trusting you, okay? It was proactive terror, man. I couldn't just stand there and watch you get blown away. And maybe I fucked up on the cop thing by not telling you, but shit, I couldn't --" 

"Couldn't trust me to keep _both_ of us safe. I fucking get that." Jim was on his back again, at least, and looking at Blair. Flatly. "So you didn't even give me the chance. You tied my hands behind my back. Deliberately. And ' _maybe_ ' you fucked up?" 

"That's not the --" 

"You keep pulling this Lone Ranger shit, Hotshot, and I can't keep either one of us safe." 

"Right -- like you would have kept yourself safe today, if I hadn't -- " 

"Like I would have kept _you_ safe today, if you'd given me the fucking chance... Christ." He sounded defeated, suddenly. "I can't keep you safe." 

Blair closed his eyes against an unexpected desire to be in the shower with Jim; whining a little, because he was leaning against Jim's solid body and Jim's solid, hot erection while Jim's soapy hand moved unhurriedly across Blair's chest, and Jim wasn't giving in, but his lips were against Blair's ear, murmuring promises for later, holding him steady. 

Jim kept him safe. Or tried to. Even when he was driving Blair crazy, even deliberately, Jim kept him safe. 

"Jim --" 

"I can't keep you safe. I fucking can't. I fucking _don't_." 

"You do. Jesus." More than anybody else ever had. And he tried to keep Jim safe, too. Tried to. Even if Jim didn't -- 

"Sure; I keep you so fucking safe you almost end up with half your head gone -- fucking _gone_ , Blair. I can't --" 

Gone. Orange-Haired Guy's voice in his ear, whispering -- "Betcha like trips, hippie man, right? Why don't I send your long-haired hippie brain on a little one-way trip, huh?" -- The muzzle of the gun jammed hard against his jaw right below the bone -- _Jim_ \-- Orange-Haired Guy's hand twisted in his hair, pulling his head back, better angle for the gun, oh God -- _Jim, I_ \-- 

"A tran-scen-den-tal trip, hippie man." -- Cold steel moving in tiny bruising slides against his throat, Orange-Haired Guy's hand twitching -- "Right now. Peace and --" 

_Jim_ \-- 

The gun digging in deeper -- 

"-- love, man." -- _No_ \-- 

The gun digging in deeper, jerking -- 

_No_ \-- 

No, not steel, not hard, not cold, no; heat, soft heat gentle against his jaw where oblivion had been, soft heat moving up to brush across his temple, his forehead, closed eyelids, tracing down his cheekbone, arriving at his mouth like deliverance -- 

_Safe_. 

Jim's lips, Jim's mouth. Jim's hands. Jim's hands, everywhere, touching. And not gently; not now. 

_Alive_. 

Jim's body, grinding against his -- God, but not enough, not -- he tried to twist and roll Jim onto his back but his leverage was wrong and Jim didn't move. No, Jim moved -- _no_ \-- but he wasn't retreating; he was turning them both until Blair was trapped underneath him, shifting -- _no, stay_ \-- to run his hands over the fucking Ace bandage. Saying, "Ice," raggedly. But not acting on it. 

Not acting on it. Saving both their lives again. And Jim's body was pressing down onto Blair's body again, hard -- hard and soft at the same time, everything Blair had almost lost -- 

Lost -- no, he couldn't lose Jim, no -- 

And Jim's mouth was back where it belonged, again, on Blair's mouth -- _found_ \-- and frantic. 

Proof. 

_Jim_. 

Nothing else mattered, whatever Jim said. Nothing else would ever matter. 

* * *

End 

Reaction by T.Verano : t.verano@earthlink.net  
Author and story notes above.

Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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